rdoyle29
This straight-to-video flick from Fred Olen Ray has not a single original bone in it's body. It starts out by stealing the premise of "The Legend of Hell House", dips into "The Exorcist" and then settles into a rip-off of "The Evil Dead". Robert Quarry headlines as a scientist leading an expedition to investigate a haunted house, bringing along psychic Brinke Stevens and a couple of other folks. This isn't exactly poorly done, but the film's budget just doesn't help it. The haunted house is just your average suburban home, and most of the film is just shot in broad daylight. While all this is going on, we meet priest Erik Estrada (yes, really) who is haunted by visions of, among other things, stark naked nun Michelle Bauer and scolding, not naked nun Carol Lynley. Eventually we learn how these two threads fit together, and the house is overrun by possessed people trying to kill other people. This should be awful, but somehow it's not. Maybe it's that the cast is not terrible, maybe it's that Ray borrows so many elements from good movies that some of them just work. It's by no means a good film, but it's no complete waste of time.
danthewrestlingmanorigin
I have enjoyed similar B movies like Evil Toons, because they are just silly fun, with a little T and A, and cheesy, but cool fx to laugh at. Spirits takes itself seriously for the most part, and it just doesn't have the script to pull it off. And what I always have to nail a film like this on is the lack of nudity, only one brief breast shot from what I remember.The story is just a mish mash of better films, and the gore and makeup effects don't come in until towards the end, and they are just average at best. By the time they came I already lost interest. Sorry to say it doesn't deliver the goodies, so I'd skip it, unless you collect everything like myself, and are a scream queen completist.
Charlotte Kaye
This is a very boring, low budget haunted house movie about a group of paranormal investigators exploring a house supposedly haunted by the spirit of a sadistic murderer named Picard. Fred Olen Ray's name isn't exactly synonymous with quality film-making, but he is capable of churning out decent B movie time killers from time to time. This one is not one of his best. The story is thin, the dialogue is pathetic, the movie is padded out and the acting is mostly terrible. Saving this from the scrap pile are some make-up effects (at the very end!) and a trio of halfway decent performances. The first good performance is from horror veteran Robert ("Count Yorga") Quarry, who plays the man in charge of putting the crew together. The second is from Carol Lynley, who is wasted in a nothing role but manages to deliver her lines effectively. The final is from B-movie Scream Queen Michelle Bauer, who gives what is probably the best performance in the entire movie as a demon posing as a nun. Too bad she's only in the movie for two or three minutes because the movie could have definitely used a lot more of her! The rest of the cast (which includes a clueless Erik Estrada as a priest and a monotone B movie queen Brinke Stevens) are downright terrible in their respective roles.
southpaw-8
Please do not waste your time watching this horribly scripted and acted movie. Let me tell you why...A few friends and I were looking for a spooky movie at the video store, unfortunatly it was around Halloween and all the good movies were gone. So we settled for this, the box didn't look half bad, little did we know.Okay, first Erik Estrada as a Priest? Then came the really corny music. The acting was terrible along with the visual effects, we were laughing so hard. Then we were totally appalled by the sex scences. A nun and a priest? Even if it was only a dream it was sooooo wrong.
It only got worse. The "evil" makeup was so bad it could not be taken seriously. Finally we just gave up. Don't waste your time or money on this cheap exorcist knock-off.
AD
